Isidora Stanišić: Naked (2022)

"Goli" traces the history of textiles and man's relationship to textiles. We will see that progress has regressed man into a created being, while giving a vain thing the role of an idol. All technological progress is focused on superficial improvement, whereby man's intervention in evolution leads to the loss of humanity. The most visible path of superficial progress is clothing, our second skin, our opportunity for transformation, our hiding place, but also a place of destruction. Does a smart suit make us better people or the wearer of it? One wearer's lifestyle is more important than another wearer's life itself? So is that bearer still human or has he evolved into another name? Who, or what, is that bearer? Does Superman fly or fall, and does it just depend on the flapping of the cape? And finally, who are we when we are naked?

Our goal was that in the era of promotion of transhumanism, we should not question what a person gains with this type of progress, but what he loses. Denying or hindering technological progress is not purposeful, but encouraging cooperation between technology and art so that progress remains in the domain of the humanities is not only purposeful, but also necessary. For this reason, the participation of the textile factory in this work of our art (because the project would be a technical term) is extremely important for the future of humanity and its joint design.

Isidora Stanišić

Confronted with the conceptual decisions that the basic performing language is in the domain of the physical (space and body), and not the digital environment, we focused on producing content that would communicate the idea of ​​the progress of human labor, the privilege of labor, and the use value of the products of human labor. The context within and from which we create stage signs is the world of textiles, textile production, and the symbolic potential of the use value that textiles can bring.

“Naked” is therefore a literal designation for those who have stripped, stripped, without clothes (because it is not possible to own, or have discarded)… At the same time, we were interested in the topic of fascination and confrontation of different use values ​​of certain textiles that appear in the face of the development of modern technologies: green screen, chroma key, smart clothing, etc. So, with new textiles that not only raise questions of consumer market accessibility, but also intervene in creating an image of our virtual reality and the camouflage of the (un)desired.

In the play, Stanisic develops a recognizable choreographic language for her, processing it in a directorial way by constructing an image of the relationship between human corporeality and traces of the textile past in the desire to master the idea of ​​the future.

Dimitrije Kokanov, playwright